


i give my hand to you with all my heart.

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bondage, Bondage and Discipline, Canon LGBTQ Character, Dom/sub, F/F, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Female Homosexuality, Fluff and Smut, Heavy BDSM, Honeymoon, Knifeplay, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pillow Fights, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, REQUEST!!, Recovery, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Soulmates, Same-Sex Marriage, Shameless Smut, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vampires, Wedding Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Inspired by; From This Moment On by Sam Bailey.~~~~~“And now, with the power vested in me, I pronounce you Mrs. and Mrs. Sayeed.” He beamed. “You may kiss your bride.”That was all the incentive either of them needed, both of them surging forwards at once. In the depths of her ancient eyes shone all these years — seasons she’d known, paths she’d trod... all that pain and loneliness melting away as she kissed her wife for the first time. Her greatest, truest, and sweetest love.Their lips tumbled over one another in the spectacular way day and night met fleetingly at twilight and dawn. Their merging affording them each the most enchanted moment of all the twenty four hours. Their kiss was both a sunrise and a sunset, ablaze with all the brilliance and passion, all the yearning, in each of their souls.She kissed her fiercely at first, then slowly. Everything reflected in Anastasia’s glacial gaze: love, joy, yearning, ripples of pleasure. The pleasure turned fierce, then ferocious. They both labored to draw breath, and when they parted they closed their eyes, brows pressed together as they yielded to the moment.
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 61





	1. you're the reason i believe in love.

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: and btw if you are not busy can you write a story about Anastasia and Kamilah's wedding reception😅 it could be super formal and romantic or chaotic and crazy because of drunk lily😅 or if you have your own idea, plssss if you are not busy

Kamilah’s breath arrested the moment she saw Anastasia standing at the opposite end of the aisle in a long white silk gown that clung to her perfect figure in all the right places, and for the first time in more than two thousand years of life, time stood still. She’d never encountered beauty of such magnitude and intensity. It was not allure, but grace, like the sight of land to a shipwrecked sailor. And she, who hadn’t been on a capsized vessel since she was six years old — and that had only been an overturned canoe in The Nile on a far too warm summers day — suddenly felt as if she’d been adrift in the vast open ocean for her entire life.

Adrian rested a hand on her shoulder, the gesture filled with pride and a deep rooted affection that had lasted between them for centuries, and he spoke something to her. She couldn’t make out a single word. All she saw was Anastasia walking towards her down the same path that had just been walked by Lily, Serafine, Zoey Wade, and little Lula Jacobs sprinkling flower petals generously through the well tended landscape of Marcel’s night blooming garden. 

Her love. 

Her angel. 

Her wife.

There was something elemental and ethereal to her beauty, like a mile-high thunderhead cloud, a gathering avalanche, or a Bengal tiger prowling the darkness of the jungle. A phenomenon of inherent power and overwhelming perfection that you couldn’t help but stare at in awe.

Their eyes met. 

She flushed. 

Desire tumbled through her.

Kamilah felt a sharp, sweet ache in her chest: her life would never again be complete without her... and it had never been complete until the moment they’d locked eyes across the Raines Corp conference room. But she felt no fear, only excitement, wonder, and desire. This was the beginning of the end. Or perhaps, it was only the end of something that had been never meant to begin, a dark chapter of her story that would never again see the light of day. 

She wished that she could have stopped time and preserved that moment forever. It was a perfect night. There was the shadow of sorrow, yes, that Lysimachus couldn’t be here to stand as her second, to see her finally happy, that protective big brother Jax was unable to walk Anastasia down the aisle. It would always be there, the sting of those losses. But that was the nature of life. The bright mirror and the dark, reflecting one another. And on this night there was so much brightness.

“Kami,” Anastasia breathed, her eyes roaming over the white jumpsuit that Serafine had helped her pick out. The Bloodkeeper could not take her eyes off her. It was as if she were performing some trick, some sort of unfolding. There was something raw and exposed about her, as if centuries of things had already happened between them, as if time had leapt ahead and they had already spent a thousand years entwined in each other’s hearts. “You’re— You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen...”

Kamilah’s ancient heart thundered in her chest as she reached out to caress Anastasia’s face. “You are radiant, my love... that dress— you—“ She chuckled, shaking her head in sheer disbelief at the fact this woman wanted to be her forever. “I have never seen anything quite like you tonight...”

Adrian cleared his throat, drawing their attention from each other before they could get too carried away with themselves. As the officiate, the power was already going to his head, Kamilah decided.

“Welcome, family, friends and loved ones,” he beamed. “We gather here today to celebrate the wedding of Kamilah and Anastasia. You have come here to share in this formal commitment they are making to one another, to offer your love and support to this union, and to allow Kamilah and Anastasia to start their married life together surrounded by the people dearest and most important to them.”

Kamilah gave Anastasia’s hand a tight squeeze, seeing only her in the crowds of vampires and a few special mortal acquaintances.

It was like nobody else even existed.

“So welcome to you all, who have traveled from almost every corner of the globe to be here tonight. Kamilah and Anastasia thank you for your presence here this evening and now ask for your joy, encouragement, and lifelong support for their decision to be married.”

Anastasia smiled at her. 

She wasn't sure that she wanted to understand the full spectrum of emotions ― everything that remained seemed dire to one degree or another. But this warm, silly mutual delight, this she wouldn't mind experiencing until she comprehended its place in the world or for as long as she continued to draw breath.

“I truly can’t think of a better venue than the very garden where they took their first walk together for an occasion that I know is not only monumental for the wedded-couple-to-be, but for all of us who are lucky to know and love them as individuals; but even more so as a perfect pairing,” Adrian beamed.

Multiple people murmured in agreement.

“The most remarkable moment in life is when you meet the person who makes you feel complete. The person who makes the world a beautiful, kind, and magical place. The person with whom you share a bond so special that it transcends time and normal relationships and becomes something so pure and so wonderful, that you can’t imagine spending another day of your life without them.” He paused. “For Kamilah, that happened a little more than 200 years ago when she met me and we became best friends, isn’t that right, Kamilah?”

“It may be my wedding day but I’m still heavily armed, brother,” she huffed, making everyone laugh.

He winked at her and continued, “But about a year-and-a-half ago she met Anastasia, who is pretty wonderful, too. I know how deeply these two care for and love one another, and I feel privileged to be here today among all of you as a witness of their commitment to an immortal lifetime of love for one another.”

Anastasia squeezed her hand.

“Now, the girls have asked that I keep this speech short, classy, and family-friendly, and politely asked me to leave out stories that are unflattering to either of them. So I’ve had to redline stories about previous flings... drugs or alcohol... bloody war stories... but I do feel comfortable saying, ‘I told you so.’ Which is exactly what I said when I learned that Kamilah and Anastasia’s relationship was becoming truly serious.”

She rolled her eyes at that, though there was no irritation. 

He truly had told her so.

“As a third-party spectator to their love, it was extremely clear that the two of them represent a perfect pairing because each of them complements the other so well. They balance one another, and while each of them are tremendous individuals on their own, together they are even better. And being better together, as a team, a unit, and partners in crime, is what has been a long time in the making and ultimately leads us to being here today, witnessing their commitment to one another in front of those they love most.” He paused, smiling at them. “I wish I could tell you a single story about Kamilah and Anastasia that summarises their relationship and how they enrich each other’s lives, and the lives of each of us, but the truth is there isn’t one single event that is a good encapsulation of what they mean to me, to each other, and to all of us. But what I do know is that both of them care deeply and passionately for each other; they protect each other; they make each other laugh and think outside themselves; that time magically seems to both fly and slow down when they’re together. They help each other in ways that are obvious and unnoticed, but always appreciated.”

She glanced at Anastasia, her eyes sparkling.

She’d read once that in everyone's life there was somebody or a single moment that touched a spot so deep, so precious, that the mind always retreated, in time of need, to that cherished place, seeking comfort within memories that never seemed to disappoint. For her, this day, this woman, was her place of safety. Of joy unlike any she’d ever known before.

“I also know that it’s not just anyone with whom you can have communication with simply a look, or remember the weirdest names written on each other’s Starbucks drinks, or surprise each other with reservations at a restaurant you’ve been eyeing for years, or say “I’m sorry” every time it’s warranted... eventually.” Everybody chuckled. “They do that for and with each other.”

Anastasia rested her head on her shoulder.

“But it’s also my personal experiences with Kamilah and Anastasia that highlight the quality of their love. It doesn’t matter if I’m with them in person, or simply in a bizarre group text with them — when I’m engaging with Kamilah and Anastasia, I am always enjoying myself. And I am certain that that’s part of what makes them so special to each of us: how happy and contented we each feel when we are with them. And what I wish for them on their wedding day is that their many lifetimes together as a team is one of complete contentment; full of those moments that they wish would never end, and that they continue to make one another smile and laugh as they make each of us do. So, without further ado... Kamilah, if you’d like to share your vows first.”

She took a deep breath and caressed Anastasia’s cheek, and The Bloodkeeper looked up at her with those big blue eyes. She experienced a pang of love so intense and ferocious it felt as though it was one of those very emotions that had once frightened her to her core.

“You have been all my moments of grace, become my best companion, my dearest friend. This ring means that I choose to spend the rest of my life with you, whether it be long or short. I promise to love you in the nurturing and selfless way that you love me. I've changed so much since I've known you. Your love has given me the strength to be softer. You've taught me kindness and compassion. You make me want to be better than I’ve ever been before, you are the one who is worth it.” She slowly slid the diamond wedding set onto her left hand and then switched to speaking Kazakh, Anastasia’s eyes filling with tears as she did. “From this moment on we shall walk the same gardens, bask in the same moonlight, we shall cross the same thresholds, we shall share the same heart. We shall welcome the same days and the same shy nights. I shall be the sun, you shall be my light; I shall be your light, you shall be my brilliance. I shall be the moon, you shall be my silver. I shall be the earth, you shall be my patience. You shall be the waters, I shall be your sanctity. You shall be the sky, I shall be your stretch of stars, I shall be the wind, you shall be its centre, you shall be all the seasons, I shall be their promise. For you, I shall be the lampflame, you shall be my stillness.” She brought her left hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers before switching back to English. “I love you. I will love you until the moment my heart stops beating or the end of the world, whichever comes first, and then after.”

“Kami,” Anastasia beamed, a few tears trickling down her cheeks.

“I may or may not have practiced for weeks,” she confessed, half laughing herself.

“It was perfect,” Anastasia beamed, clearing her throat as Lula handed her the other ring.

Kamilah’s heart rate doubled.

“I want so badly to be able to explain all the love I have for you. Not the love of butterflies and stomach knots — but more the blurring of self and the entanglement with another soul. Love is a word that is far too soft and used far too often to ever describe the fierce, infinite and blazing passion that I have in my heart for you,” Anastasia said as she slid the ring onto her finger. “You are a million dreams and a million prayers of a lost and lonely little girl come true. You are kind. You are funny. You are intelligent. Your laugh is contagious and you make me happier than I even thought it was possible to be. You acknowledge my strengths and accept my faults. You make me want to be a better person every day. I take you for who you’ve been, for the woman you have worked to become now, for who you’ll be tomorrow and for eternity to come, to be my wife. Even when the day comes that we’re older and perhaps more jaded than we are now, I promise to always see you with the same eyes and the same heart that I see you with at this exact moment.” She gently brushed her thumb over her knuckles. “So tonight, I vow to honour you and respect you, support you and encourage you. I promise to dream with you, celebrate with you, and walk beside you through whatever life brings us. I vow to laugh with you and comfort you during times of joy and times of sorrow. I promise to always pursue you, to fight both for and with you, and love you unconditionally and wholeheartedly for the rest of my life. You are my best friend and I’m the luckiest person on Earth to call you mine.”

“Baby,” she murmured, wiping at her eyes.

“Kamilah Sayeed, do you take Anastasia Alexeievna Swann to be your wife?,” Adrian asked. “Do you promise to love, honour, cherish, and protect her, forsaking all others, and holding only unto her forevermore?”

“I do.”

“Anastasia Alexeievna Swann, do you take Kamilah Sayeed to be your wife? Do you promise to love, honour, cherish, and protect her, forsaking all others, and holding only unto her forevermore?”

Anastasia nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“And now, with the power vested in me, I pronounce you Mrs. and Mrs. Sayeed.” He beamed. “You may kiss your bride.”

That was all the incentive either of them needed, both of them surging forwards at once. In the depths of her ancient eyes shone all these years — seasons she’d known, paths she’d trod... all that pain and loneliness melting away as she kissed her wife for the first time. Her greatest, truest, and sweetest love.

Their lips tumbled over one another in the spectacular way day and night met fleetingly at twilight and dawn. Their merging affording them each the most enchanted moment of all the twenty four hours. Their kiss was both a sunrise and a sunset, ablaze with all the brilliance and passion, all the yearning, in each of their souls.

She kissed her fiercely at first, then slowly. Everything reflected in Anastasia’s glacial gaze: love, joy, yearning, ripples of pleasure. The pleasure turned fierce, then ferocious. They both labored to draw breath, and when they parted they closed their eyes, brows pressed together as they yielded to the moment.

“We were stood right here when you told me love would make you weak and indecisive, remember?,” Anastasia murmured, her voice taking on that glorious teasing tone that could quite easily bring her joy in the moments she felt most liable to slit a man’s throat.

What a fool she had been then, to think that she’d actually thought that the older a person got the less they loved, that she’d believed love a weakness. She had thought herself done with romantic love. She had thought herself an incurable cynic. 

She was not, though.

She never had been.

She had been only someone whose heart and mind, and very soul, had been battered and bruised.

And for a journey like theirs, love had been the only thing that had make her strong enough. She it was something of a ridiculous cliche to say that love made all things in the world possible, but she truly now believed it did. It was not a magic wand that could be waved over a life of blood and war to make it all sweet and lovely and trouble free, but it could give the energy to fight against all the odds and evils in the world and win.

"Don't ever listen to an idiot like me," she answered, kissing her again. “I’m not nearly as intelligent as I profess to be.”

Anastasia giggled against her lips. “I love you so much, Mrs. Sayeed.”

“I didn't know," she whispered. "I didn't know I could love another person so much.” She dabbed at her watering eyes. “It doesn’t matter where I am or what I am doing; I’m yours. Always yours. As long as I live and breathe, I will be with you. And I will shield you from the world and all it’s harms. I never thought I'd say this, but I am... truly glad to have lived long enough to have found you. I wonder now how I even got by when you weren't here."

"I have no doubt the devastation was widespread, the suffering universal,” Anastasia giggled as she brushed her fingers over her cheek.

"Indeed, it was the Dark Ages.” She kissed the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t know I was looking for you, but I was,” she whispered. “Now that I’ve found you, please don’t ever let me go.”

“Sweetheart, not a chance. I promise that no matter what happens in the future, we will work it out. That no matter how life goes, I’ll be by your side. I’ll always love you because I’ve seen the worst of you and I’ve seen the best, and I know just how lucky I am to have met my perfect match.” Anastasia smiled softly at her, her voice now hardly a whisper, “This moment is the beginning of the rest of our lives.”

“Our forever,” she sighed happily, brushing her thumb over her lower lip. “Anastasia Sayeed.” 

Her life had finally begun. 

Finally, she had learned that love did not always betray you. That love did not hurt.

Finally, she had found peace. She was no longer waiting for a blow to come.

Finally, she knew joy.

Finally, after more than two thousand of wandering this world as a shell of who she used to be, she had found her way back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🦋🦋 Decided to start with the ceremony, Part 2 will be the reception! 🦋🦋


	2. right beside you is where I belong.

“My god,” Serafine murmured, placing a hand on her chest and actually gasping aloud. 

“She’s beautiful,” Adrian sighed.

“An angel,” Serafine gasped.

“Sis could get it.” Lily nodded, approvingly, whilst snapping photos and yelling, “YESSS, GURL, SLAYYY!” 

“Wow,” Kamilah breathed, it was all she could say as her jaw practically hit the floor at the sight of her wife in her second white silk gown of the evening... complete with the Romanov Dynasty diamond Kokoshnik tiara she’d promised her on the final night of her mortal life.

Anastasia was there, standing at the top of the marble staircase some distance away with the flickering candle light from the chandeliers casting her in a ethereal golden light, and such was the power of her presence that everyone seemed to sense it and fell back away from Kamilah, silence falling over the ballroom. There was still all sorts of noise coming through the wide open french doors, of course — horses, carriage wheels, voices, the water spouting out of the fountains, the full orchestra on the terrace — but it seemed to Kamilah as if complete silence had fallen.

The Bloodkeeper’s gaze was steady and glacial-eyed and filled with love. She came gliding down the stairs with characteristic grace and did not stop coming until she had caught Kamilah on the dance floor in a tight, wordless embrace that lasted perhaps a whole minute while they swayed slowly from side to side as Kamilah dipped her forehead to her wife’s shoulder and felt at last — after more than two thousand years of terror — that at long last she was safe. 

It was an extraordinary moment. She had been little more than a child when her parents had died, left with only Lysimachus and her noble blood for security. Kamilah had never thought she’d know this feeling again after then losing her brother as a young woman. Indeed, she had often secretly resented the people who’d known nothing but love whilst she was trapped at the side of a man who had wielded power over her with such unwavering strictness, and often with apparant impersonality and lack of humour. Who had turned her into someone who’d had to recover from Stockholm Syndrome and had then always thought of herself as aloof, unfeeling, and totally self sufficient. A cold fish. And yet it was in the arms of a woman who’d seen only twenty-three years of life that she felt her own homecoming most acutely. She felt finally and completely and unconditionally loved.

Anastasia was not Gaius. She would never be like Gaius. She was everything that Gaius was not. She was safety and comfort and warmth. She was home. She was everything in the world that was hope and sunshine. She was in those arms without ever really knowing how or when the distance between them had closed.

An extraordinary moment, indeed it was.

“I’d forgotten all about this tiara,” Anastasia giggled in her ear as they danced. “I tried on like a hundred different things that night.”

“I could never forget,” Kamilah breathed, her eyes drifting over the wedding present glittering in her ginger hair. “Though I did have to be talked out of commissioning you multiple of your own. Adrian thought I was getting carried away with myself.”

“I had to be talked out of breaking into The Smithsonian to steal you an entire army’s worth of viking weapons,” Anastasia pouted. “Lily was down to help me but Serafine wouldn’t allow it.”

At that she started laughing. Just the thought of her wife and Lily breaking into one of the world’s most respected institutions to steal weapons brought a smile to her face. People certainly did understand the language of the heart, even if the head did not always comprehend it... and a part of her would’ve loved to have bore witness to Serafine attempting to talk their little — and very well meaning — hellions out of this.

“The new dagger you got me is so breathtaking it almost reduced me to tears. I don’t know how you managed to procure Tutankhamun’s meteorite dagger... but thank you. I have wanted it since I was a child and never dared dream it would ever be mine.”

“I may or may not have played with more than a few people’s minds,” Anastasia whispered in her ear. “I know you two weren’t even of the same dynasty but I figured that robbing the people who robbed the tomb of anyone who used to rule Egypt was a good thing.”

She pressed her lips to hers and kissed her slowly. “I like your logic very much.”

“I hope I’m not cursed now,” Anastasia said seriously, looking genuinely alarmed at the thought of some ancient curse haunting the rest of her immortal life.

At that Kamilah snorted and started laughing hysterically. Only this woman could reduce her to this giggling mess in the midst of a romantic moment without even trying to. Only this woman could make her laugh like this at all.

“After everything you’ve done, you cannot possibly be worried about an ancient curse.”

Anastasia huffed. “I seem like a pretty cursed individual... like Voldemort’s lovechild or The Avatar, you know? If anyone is going to be hit with a curse or any sort of bad luck, we all know who it’s gonna be.”

No, she did not know, but she kissed her forehead to placate her. “You needn’t worry. The dagger is now in the hands of the last remaining ancient Egyptian, stolen back from the modern capitalists and so called historians who profit off of the crimes of rich white grave robbers. No Egyptian curse would dare harm someone who has done such a wonderful thing.”

“You’re sure?” Anastasia blinked at her. “It might be ridiculously Eastern of me to believe in curses but after everything I’ve been through and how mysticism is engrained in my culture... I just don’t think I can be too careful.”

“I’m certain,” she assured her, twirling her beneath her arm, “that the gods themselves have you under their protection— it was rumoured that this dagger was a gift from them, you know.”

“Oh?”

“The tales of the dagger from the sky were passed down through the generations,” she explained, her mouth at her ear. “We didn’t understand exactly what meteorites were, and the fact that they fell from the heavens meant that they could only have come from the gods. I may or may not have thrown many a tantrum as a child when I was denied my very own sky dagger.”

Anastasia giggled softly. “Kamilah Sayeed throwing a tantrum over her daggers, well I never—“

“Oh stop. I was a princess, so forgive me for being a spoiled brat with strong opinions on knives,” she chuckled, nipping at the shell of her ear. “At the age of five I might have stolen one of my father’s blades and tore his favourite sandals to shreds when I found out the miniature dagger I’d been gifted after his travels had only been crafted by a blacksmith in Rome rather than coming from the gods. I was so distressed I even beheaded my mother’s flowers and cut the end of Lysimachus’ braid off— I was a volatile little thing.”

“Well,” Anastasia breathed, leaning back to look her in the eye, “now you have the real thing.”

She caressed her cheek and pressed her brow against hers. “Now I have you... and there is nothing more precious to me than you.”

She knew now that love was liking and companionship and respect and trust. Love did not dominate in every day situations or try to possess. Love thrived only in a commitment to pure, mutual freedom. That was why most people found the concept of marriage so tricky, Kamilah believed. There was the marriage ceremony and the marriage vows and the necessity for fidelity — all of them suggestive of restraints, even imprisonment, to some. Before meeting Anastasia she herself had talked of life sentences and leg shackles in connection to marriage, but she knew now that marriage ought to be just the opposite — two people agreeing to set each other free... and then choosing to be free, together.

The freedom that she felt with a ring on her finger was intoxicating, addicting. She was free to love or to withhold love. Love and dependence need no longer be the same thing to her. She was free to live and to love, and that was why she loved her wife and it was the way she loved her. Suddenly, and for the first time, she was at the center of her own life, living it and loving it.

As they glided across the dance floor Kamilah gazed into the blue of her wife’s eyes and knew absolutely that heaven — at least in this life — was neither a time nor one specific place to be grasped and made into a possession. It came in these fleeting moments that made one terribly aware that they were alive. Not just living and breathing, not anymore, but... alive. 

Happy in the present moment.

Sometimes now was enough.

Sometimes it was everything.

For someone who’d lived for so long guarding her real, precious self in a cocoon of pain within a thousand masks, whose very life itself had become a secret affair, this tranquility was a glorious thing. This was her fate, she believed. Not the blind destiny like Anastasia had been forced to face up to that had given little-to-no freedom of choice, but a fate that set down a pattern for her life and had given her choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy.

This was the glorious consequence of all the choices she’d made in the past two thousand years. And she would no longer call them the wrong choices. That would be foolish and pointless. That choices she’d made had led her to everything that had happened since meeting Anastasia, including this very moment, and the choices she made for the rest of that evening or the day after or the next week would lead her to the next and next present moments in her life. It was all a journey. She had come to understand that that was what life was all about — a journey and the courage and energy always to take the next step and the next without judgement about what was right and what was wrong.

There was something infinitely better than the happily-ever-after that most people sought after, she decided as she held her wife in her arms and watched their nearest and dearest laughing around the room. There was happiness. Happiness that was a living, dynamic thing that had to be worked on every moment for the rest of their lives. It was a far more exciting prospect than that silly static idea of a fairytale happily-ever-after.

“I know you don’t want me to say it,” Adrian said as he and Lily cut in, Lily guiding Anastasia in the next dance and he her. He offered his arm and she took it. And the world was the same place as it was when they’d last shared a dance at the Dark Solstice a few years earlier. And forever different. “But I think it needs to be said...”

“What does?”

“That I’m proud of you.” He smiled. “You’ve turned your life around.”

“She changed my life,” she replied quietly, her eyes flickering between her love and her brother. When one had once suffered a great hurt, as she had, there was always a weakness afterward, a vulnerability where there had been wholeness and strength before — and innocence. “I hadn’t truly noticed, before, how standing still can sometimes be no different from moving backwards. For the whole world moves on and leaves one behind. I don’t think I would’ve ever acknowledged that, or acknowledged my pain had I never met her. All that wasted time—“

“No time is really wasted unless one never learns the lessons that it offers,” Adrian interjected. “You’ve learned yours. We can always do anything as long as we are alive to do it. We can always change, grow, evolve into a far better version of ourselves. It is surely what life is for... and I am just so happy that you’re finally happy. I never told you exactly how much and how often I worried for you between locking Gaius away and Anastasia coming into our lives. You lived for a long time as one who had conquered every aspect of her pain except the deepest and your suffering was in many ways worse than my own suffering because it left me feeling so very helpless.”

Her breath caught in her throat and she immediately thought of a rainy evening in the February of 1934. A rainy February night like any other when the days were really getting longer and you could see it, if you really looked. You could see how at the end of each day the world of mortals seemed cracked open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees, and promised. It promised, that light, and what a thing that was... what an inconvenience to the world of vampires. She and Adrian had been walking through Central Park and she’d been unhappy about one thing or other, when he’d noticed her agony and asked her not to kill herself — asked, not told. His childhood friend had done that, he’d told her, and it was in a sense the ultimate act of selfishness since it left behind untold and endless suffering for those who had witnessed it and been unable to do anything to prevent it. And so she had remained alive. She had grown older and wiser, had been able to allow all the pain to seep out of her bones and her soul so that she could start again... all because of that one request.

She leaned in and gently kissed his cheek. Families were a wonderful institution and she valued hers more than she could possibly say. It was the challenge of life too, where familial relationships were concerned, was it not? People could never really be fully understood. They were ever changing, different people at different times and under different circumstances and influences. And always growing, always creating themselves anew.

How impossible it was to know another human being.

How impossible to know even oneself all of the time.

But having a family who wished to shelter and protect, and support you in your living so that you would never again know fear or abandonment was a glorious thing that she would never again take for granted. The love of a family was a connection with other people, either through birth or through something else that even Kamilah could not explain. It was often just an irritation at first. But it went far deeper than that. It was a determination to care for the other person no matter what and to allow oneself to be cared for in return. It was a commitment to make the other happy and to be happy oneself. It was not a possessive thing, but neither was it a victim. And it did not always bring happiness all of the time. Often it brought a great deal of pain, especially when a beloved one was suffering and one felt impotent to comfort. It was what life was all about. It was openness and trust and vulnerability.

“Thank you,” she whispered, doing her best to conceal the fact her voice was tight and her vision blurry. “For everything. Thank you, more than I can express.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I’ve always loved you, idiot,” Adrian chuckled, his eyes a brown that were almost black in this flickering candle light. They could speak volumes, but sometimes even she could not translate the language. And they never did invent enough signs for deeper thoughts and feelings. “You know that.” 

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I only wonder whether I deserve such undying devotion.”

“What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation,” he breathed. “And I know that Lysimachus is as proud of you on this night as I am.”

She let out a watery laugh. “I know...”

Kamilah smiled more that evening than she had done in a long time, she was so happy she even joined Drunk Lily in a rather ridiculous dance called the Cha Cha Slide without whipping out her new dagger. Besides the night she’d found Anastasia trying to feed in Central Park after four long days of mourning her, she’d count this night as the happiest of all her life.

And when they sat down to eat, she realised she could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the elegant flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the food hanging over the table, the heads turning this way and that, the voices murmuring and laughing. She looked at her wife, who was next to her, having a laugh with Serafine, who had a beautiful gown on, crimson with a tiny waist and lots of jewellery. As if on cue, Anastasia turned from Serafine and looked at her, and they agreed in that instant: something wonderful had created itself from nothing — two lonely lives that never would have crossed had they remained mortal, where not much happiness had previously existed, had now been filled with something rich and irreplaceable.

Love certainly hadn’t cured her of her two thousand years of pain but, rather, it had helped her find the beauty that remained in the world. The love of her wife. The love of her family. The new order of the world. She felt incredibly lucky to be alive, to have lived long enough to get everything she could ever want.

There was a beauty to seeing the world anew through Anastasia’s eyes. The night, to her, had for a long time been rather ordinary, normally overlaid with New York’s crowded odors and a dampness that promised a deeply unlovely fog in the near future. But she preferred to consider the commonest patch of grass and the most unremarkable clump of trees worthy of a Constable canvas — in which case any given night spent at her side could very well have graced the ceiling of a great cathedral.

And on that night, after the horse drawn carriages left and people retired to their rooms, there would be Annie. Her scent like a breeze from a sunny flower field at the height of summer, her skin as smooth as the finest velvet... and she would lose herself in her. Again and again. Until long after dawn had broken and the world of mortals had awoken. Until anything other than her wife’s love was nothing more than a distant memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🦋🦋 Part 3 will be the Honeymoon 🦋🦋


	3. from this moment, life has begun.

As Kamilah had once said to someone in London in the year 1538, though she did not care to remember to whom exactly she had spoken, for they were long dead, she had liked the sight of the sea because it represented her escape from everything. And she had escaped, for a while at least. But it hadn’t been until much later that she had realised that perhaps it was from herself that she wished most to escape from and that could not be done.

For wherever she went, she must inevitably take herself along too.

All had been artifice in her world then. 

Even herself. 

Especially herself. 

Her mother had taught her to be a princess when she was a little girl, to be an impregnable fortress, to be the guardian of her own heart. But she had admitted that she could not teach her how or when to allow the fortress to be breached or her heart to be unlocked. It would simply happen, she had said to her when she had started asking questions. She had promised it would, in fact. 

‘The only thing you can neither plan nor control, my dearest girl,’ her mother had told her more than two thousand years ago, ‘is love itself. When you find it, you must yield to it. But only if it is the one and only true passion of your life. Never if it is anything less than that, or life will consume you.’

‘But how am I to know?,’ she had asked her.

‘You will know.’

But Kamilah had spent most of her life wondering how was love to find her, wondering if she was even capable of it... but never believing that she’d actually find it — or, rather, that it would find her.

Things were so different now to how they’d been, to how she’d imagined that they’d be.

Her sense of guilt for the things she’d done in her past certainly lingered, and she had come to realise that perhaps that was a good thing, for truly evil people felt no guilt or shame for the terrible things they’d done. And there were two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowned you until you were useless, and the kind that fired your soul to purpose — hers was the second. It would always be part of her, but sharing it, allowing the most wonderful woman she’d ever known to love her anyway, had done her the world of good. Secrets needed an outlet if they were not to fester and become an unbearable burden.

“We should just run away,” Kamilah murmured as she playfully twirled her wife beneath her arm as they walked hand-in-hand back to their hotel in Sicily just before dawn, the rising sun already beginning to glimmer on the sea. Music from a nearby music hall was still playing and Kamilah had been dancing with her wife rather than simply just walking for the past few hundred yards. If there was magic alive in this world, she had thought after the first couple of minutes, it was surely present in the waltz danced with someone one you loved more than life itself. “Keep travelling the world forever. Just the two of us.”

“I love that thought.” Anastasia giggled against her neck. “But I think New York would burn to the ground without us.”

She snorted, knowing that it was true. They’d been gone for only five weeks travelling the globe and the group chat was awash with descriptions of ridiculous disasters that wouldn’t have happened if someone with a bit of common sense was there to threaten to stab imbeciles on the daily.

She reached out and caressed her wife’s cheek, smiling softly to herself as Anastasia chittered in her excitement. On their travels, she had seen her in sharper relief than she ever had before. She had an infallible compass, and a unique way of seeing everything that most people missed as if every little thing was a gift, like she knew and was always thinking about how it would never be there exactly the same again. More than anyone she’d ever known, Anastasia understood how nothing in the world ever held still for them, or should, regardless of the fact that time was forever frozen, still. 

Just spending this amount of uninterrupted time with her had made her think about how living was not merely a matter of staying alive, was it? It was what you did with your life and the fact of your survival that counted. God, she thought, she’d been a married woman for only five-and-a-half weeks and she was already turning into such an optimist. Anastasia did not even know how much she did for people, but every woman she met felt it and was drawn to her. The thing was, though, that most men felt drawn to her too. So it was not flirtation. It was simply the extraordinary attractiveness of her character.

“What?,” The Bloodkeeper giggled as the walked through the lobby of their hotel towards the private elevator to the penthouse suite they’d been staying in. 

“I may or may not be fairly aroused once again,” she smirked. “Fairly, as in, extremely.”

Anastasia fisted her hand in her hair and gave a rough tug as Kamilah pressed her against the back wall of the elevator, a sharp gasp coming from the back of her throat that she couldn’t hold back. The Bloodkeeper pressed a few teasing kisses against the side of her neck, scraping her elongated fangs against her hammering pulse. “Extremely, huh?”

“Extremely.” She sighed wistfully, her fingers brushing over her creamy white skin as they roved upwards to close teasingly around her neck. “I’m not even shocked. I did warn you when you wore that sundress that it would only lead to one thing.”

“I did warn you when you bought me this sundress that it would only lead to one thing,” Anastasia teased, drawing a tiny amount of blood with her fangs in the crook between her neck and shoulder.

She groaned, practically collapsing with pleasure in her arms as she continued to pierce her skin. The edge of her fangs broke skin effortlessly, and she felt blood trickle down her throat in a thin fracture. Her blue eyes flickered to the wound, and Kamilah knew it had already healed.

They had been wed for only a few weeks now, and still the briefest glance at her wife awakened the savage in Kamilah. The smallest movement or casual touch made her want to rip off her clothes and press her back on the nearest available surface and rut on her wildly.

“Why do you think I insisted on purchasing it in every available colour?”

The Bloodkeeper huffed against her skin. “Perv.”

As the elevator doors to their suite open she picked Anastasia up, her heart thudding as she wound her legs tightly around her waist. She gave a teasing tug on the diamond day collar around her neck, “We both know you adore being objectified by me, darling.”

“I want the other one on.”

“Don’t be a brat.” She nipped at her bottom lip. “Say please.”

Anastasia rolled her eyes and pouted playfully. “Please, oh horny one, collar me.”

She spluttered. “You’re teasing me.”

“Who? Me? Never.”

She unceremoniously threw her down on the bed, quietly relishing in the giggling it elicited. “I can see it’s going to be one of those nights that I have my work cut out for me.”

She grabbed the black leather collar from the top of the suitcase and stopped to watch as Anastasia removed her choker in one graceful movement. There was something she found ridiculously sweet about the way she eagerly leaned into the collar, submitting to her with so much trust in her eyes.

“You look beautiful tonight, baby.” 

“It’s the collar.” 

“Maybe. I think it’s the happiness. You wear it well.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“How far are you willing to go tonight?,” she murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. 

“Take me. Own me. Use me. Pick a verb. Just please.”

“Fuck you. I'm going to fuck you. That's my verb.” She took her bottom lip between her teeth. “You're my wife. I'm going to do all sorts of filthy things to you because you belong to me. You're my little toy. I'm going to fuck you as often as I can and in as many ways as my filthy mind can come up with.”

“Then fuck me however you want,” Anastasia moaned, watching her with rapt attention. “That's a strong marriage.”

A dangerous flicker of energy passed between them, and she saw her pupils dilate as arousal flooded her body. Anastasia’s mouth found her’s aggressively, and her lips closed around hers, pushing her tongue inside her mouth; claiming her. She melted into the kiss.

“Say your safe word,” she panted, drawing back and lightly squeezing her hand around her throat.

“Red.”

“Good girl,” she nodded as stepped away from her and walked across the room. “Come here.”

Anastasia stood, knowing her well enough to know exactly what was expected of her, and Kamilah watched the power of her words place invisible constraints on her body. She fell down to her knees and crawled on the floor to kneel at her feet. In that moment, she was her master; in that moment, everything seemed natural and right in the world, pulling both of them into perfect equilibrium.

She’d had no idea it would be like this before meeting her. That having someone on their knees for you would make you so gloriously vulnerable.

“Undress me.”

Kamilah was a wickedly passionate, fiercely dominant woman who loved her too much to ever really bring any real pain to her... but their games and power exchanges were certainly entertaining. Thrilling, even. This was the only type of love she needed in her life. To have someone she could take care of in every sense and who would trust her to do so. No matter what she asked of her within their discussed boundaries.

Her entire body shuddered as Anastasia did as she was told, her slender fingers tickling at her skin. This was as psychological as it was physical and sexual. There was nothing quite like the thrill that came with being as deep inside a woman’s mind as you were inside her body. What turned her on was not only what she did to her body, it was what she did to her mind.

“Now, undress for me and let me see what’s mine.” 

Anastasia went about undressing herself immediately, keeping her eyes locked on her as she did. She was feeling wonderfully devious as she reached for the zip of her sundress and worked at pulling it down, being slow about revealing her breasts and stomach muscles, watching with a sense of satisfaction as Kamilah’s gaze started to follow her languid movements.

“Good girl,” she breathed as she prowled around her in a circled, studying her every inch. Every inch of her ached for her, but this moment was more than sex, more than horniness.

“Tie me up.”

She tugged on her hair hard enough to make her cry out and reached out to run her thumb over her bottom lip and then slipped it inside her mouth. Anastasia groaned, feeling the tip of her digit hook over her bottom teeth. “You do not call the shots.”

Anastasia pouted around her finger and for that Kamilah immediately pushed her onto the bed so that she was laying face down. A play spanking could certainly be erotic but they both knew that Kamilah was going to take them both flying, so high they’d never have felt anything like it.

As her hand hit her flesh she drank in her pleasure like it was fine wine, savouring every drop, letting it soothe her mind, her tension flowing out the fingertips that grazed the reddening skin between each strike. Anastasia begged for it harder. Kamilah gave it to her... only because she was so polite about it.

Her heart rate quickened at the begging. More. Please. More. Please. More. Please. Please. Please. She revelled in the sound of her gasps and moans at each strike, the sting intensifying as her flesh warmed with every blow.

“How many spanks have you had, darling?,” she asked.

“Twelve, I think.”

She hummed in agreement. “Do you think that’s enough?”

“Absolutely not,” Anastasia said quickly. “I’ve been a bratty little bitch all day. I’m sure there’s a hundred more things you could punish me for.”

A smile twitched at the corners of her lips as she caressed the flushed skin of her backside. “Well since you’re being so honest about your behaviour, I’m certain I could indeed teach you a few more lessons.”

She’d never met anyone who seemed to be on the same page as she was where all of this stuff was concerned. Who was not turned off in the slightest by her darkest desires. Who knew so absolutely that sex did not have to conform to society’s standards to be sane. That it did not have to be slow and tender to be safe. Nor did it have to be free of leather cuffs and spankings to be consensual.

She hovered over her on all fours once she’d counted twenty-five and kissed her way up her spine. Anastasia glanced over her shoulder smiled. A sub shouldn’t be terrified, but a little excited anxiety like this was good. Very good, indeed.

It was just the two of them. She could kiss her, or she could bite her. Both possibilities were equally tempting as she turned her onto her back and she looked up at her from under her long, dark lashes. The air felt thick with the feeling between them, like it was filling the room: a room full of their carnal heat, their white hot desire for each other. 

Then her mouth was on Anastasia’s, hungry and aggressive. Her teeth skimmed her lips, claiming her and she felt her tongue probing inside of her mouth. But she ended the kiss as dramatically as it began, leaving them both reeling and desiring more.

“I want you to touch yourself,” she murmured.

“Touch myself?”

She scraped her teeth against her right breast. “Touch yourself for me. It wasn’t a request. I wish to enjoy the show.”

“Perv,” Anastasia giggled, sticking her tongue out in an act of petulance as her left hand drifted down between her legs.

“I’m not the one masturbating, sweetheart,” she teased, nipping at the shell of her ear. “Slower than that. You’re not finishing from this.”

The bloodkeeper sighed. Her voice sounded needy — already. “That’s just cruel.”

She smirked, her own desire rising as a sharp cry left her wife’s mouth as she dug her nails into her inner thigh. “Keep your eyes on me.”

When Anastasia started whimpering. Kamilah held her closer, her hard grip reassuring. Her climax began gathering, rising toward almost to a point of no return. She was too close, too near to being overwhelmed as she watched her. 

Her pleasure was her pleasure.

She cried out, trembling exclamations.

“Stop,” Kamilah ordered just before she could fall over the edge, physically stilling her hand. “Breathe.”

Anastasia huffed and Kamilah pulled her head back by her hair, and she could hear her ragged breathing as her mouth came close to her ear, sounding so desperate for release. “Kami...”

“Give me a taste.” 

She offered her left hand. Kamilah held her wrist then raised her hand to her mouth and licked her juices. This was a trial of her own restraint and she was winning. But barely. Anastasia, she had decided long ago, tasted good. Very good. She liked giving her pleasure. But more, she liked that she allowed her to see the extremity of her reactions, no holds barred. So she loved her, learned her, tasted her. 

Her blood was liquid fire, hot and salty, copper and moonlight ablaze as she grabbed the handcuffs that were still stuffed in the bedside drawer from the previous night and straddled her chest. “Give me your wrists. I sense your impatience, and I know exactly where you intend for those hands to go.”

“Take them yourself,” Anastasia challenged.

“I need you. Now,” she growled.

Anastasia smirked up at her as she grabbed both of her hands and cuffed them to the headboard and before she could even adjust her own position she was somehow already over her face. Her abilities pulled her into her with an unyielding strength. She’d been unmistakably seized.

“Using your abilities on your domme is both cheating and a punishable offence.”

“I know,” Anastasia smirked against her thigh. “But you’re dripping enough that I know that you enjoy it.”

“That’s... besides the point.” She huffed breathily in amusement and tugged on her hair, her eyes rolling as Anastasia’s expert tongue and teeth worshipping her upper thighs. “Brat— mm, fuck—“

Anastasia grazed her lightly, very lightly, on the inner thigh with her teeth for that remark. And then ran her tongue along the inside of the other thigh, feeling her shudder. She swore again but didn’t make any attempt to take control... her oral fixation simply wouldn’t allow it.

Despite how much she adored being pleasured this way, she’d allowed it to happen with so few of her previous partners. Oral sex was one of the most intimate sex acts a person could take part in, and in many ways it always felt more intimate than penetrative sex. It was a vulnerable act in which you relinquished control of your most private and sensitive body part to your partner... and it had never before felt so comfortable.

“You were saying?” She smirked at her before sucking hard on her thigh. “My needy domme.”

“I leave marks on you, not the other way around.”

“Looks like that’s something else you have to punish me for,” Anastasia cooed, batting her eyelashes like someone who was the picture of innocence before marking her once again. “Oops. My mouth slipped.”

She shook her head, half laughing. She had always thought the Holy Grail would be finding a woman who submitted gladly and whole-heartedly to her leadership. Now she saw how much more powerful it was when the surrender was a bit defiant, when she had to overcome her own strong will before yielding to hers. She didn’t want an off-the-shelf submissive after all. She wanted a woman with a mind of her own, whose heart and will had to be tamed, who would submit to her and her alone.

“The things I’m going to do to you for thinking you’re the one in control of this situation...”

She knew that, technically speaking, Anastasia was the one in control of this situation. Any power over her that she held was a temporary thing. She’d immediately stop if Anastasia told her to, so she was the one who actually held the power, but they both knew that she wouldn’t tell her to stop. She’d beg her not to.

Anastasia smirked at her. Her voice was a sensual, confiding whisper, and she clung to every rapturous word. “Aren’t I?”

Her entire body jerked as Anastasia buried her face between her thighs, her hands gripping the headboard as she surrendered to her ministrations. The Bloodkeeper stroked her with her tongue, licking deeply into the seam of moist folds. Avidly she teased the tiny engorged peak where her pleasure was concentrated. She nibbled, stroked, darted her tongue at it, as she felt her stiffen in approaching climax. She backed off, gentling, while she moaned pleadingly. Twice more she brought her to the edge, making her suffer, tormenting until she responded with desperate tugs at her hair.

“Annie,” she moaned.

“Mhm?,” Anastasia hummed, drawing back to pepper kisses against her upper thighs.

“Make me yours.”

“You are mine,” whispered Anastasia.

Anastasia sank her tongue deep inside her, until she shuddered hard as her pleasure finally reached its zenith. The climaxes broke over her, and she arched and gasped as she was consumed in an explosion of pure white fire. She cried out until the velvety strokes of her tongue became too much to bear and she had to shimmy out of her reach.

“Good girl,” she panted as she rewarded her with a kiss before cleaning off the lower half of her face with her tongue. “Such a good girl.”

She placed one of her long fingers over her lips, silencing her before she could speak another bratty remark. She could smell her own musky arousal on her face and almost combusted when Anastasia gave in to the strongest urge to take her finger into her mouth and sucked it as she did to her earlier. She said nothing but drilled into her with those dazzling blue eyes and she had the strangest feeling that she was looking into her very soul.

As their games wore on she could feel her wife’s whole body trying to claim her, wanting her, owning her in lust, and it made her feel so valuable and wanted. As she had Anastasia on her hand and knees, or kneeling at her feet, or splayed across the bed, she really felt like she was the world to her, and she could think of nothing else, could feel nothing else: she was consumed by her, dedicated to exploring with her, and her calculated punishing of her with the toys they’d bought specially for their honeymoon, her skilful edging of her, and it felt like she would rather die, than be without the chance to connect with her in sex.

“You are so wet,” she enthused in a mocking tone, kissing over her clit. “See how much you love to be punished, baby?”

“Yes, Kami,” Anastasia whimpered, physically fighting the urge to push herself back onto her fingers. “Please....”

“Please what?,” she murmured, lightly dragging her dagger from her clavicle down between her breasts and onto her stomach. There wasn’t enough pressure to cut, but enough that she felt the contrast between her warm skin and the cool blade. “Mm? Tell me exactly what it is that you want.”

Anastasia blinked up at her, eyes unfocused, and beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. When she ran the blade over her she felt light as a feather, floating happily into that place where pain and pleasure walked hand in hand. “I...”

She smirked, quietly loving that she’d gotten her to this point after her defiance earlier in the evening. Her blood pumped faster as she marvelled at having her naked and willingly at her mercy. She couldn’t help but think she was exactly what she’d always needed: a challenge. And how sweet her submission always was, because she’d really earned it.

“What do you want me to do to you, Annie?”

She bit down on her bottom lip and whimpered as she made a shallow cut along her ribs and watched as it healed itself. “I need... you.”

“Where did you go, gorgeous girl?,” she cooed, leaning over to pepper soothing kisses around her face, knowing that she was getting to the point where her consent would soon start becoming dubious. Now was the time to give her exactly what she wished for before spending the next few hours pampering her.

“Fuck me, Kami, please...”

She kissed her lips slowly, caressing her face as she threw her dagger aside. The deepest show of love she had ever experienced was when she surrendered her mind, body and soul to her to use as however she pleased, trusting that when she took her to the very brinks of her self-control, she’d bring her back more whole than before.

Kamilah’s head dropped forward to worship her breasts as she began touching her. Her face was flushed, knowing that her wife’s satisfaction was only a few glorious moments away. She’d spent hours sculpting her body into what she saw in her mind… into what she desired. Painted her with marks, bruises and bites. Taken her pleasure. Now was the time to deliver each and every one of her heart’s desires.

“You feel so good, baby.”

“Kami— There... right there—“

She smirked and took her nipple into her mouth as she continued to reach that one particular spot and rub her in that one particular way she always seemed to like. “Look at me,” she murmured, moving so that their brows were rested together. “I want to see it when you finish.”

“Kami... I’m—“

“You have permission,” she assured her, her tone gentler than it had been before. “You’ve been so good, my love. It’s alright.”

Anastasia shuddered wildly as the coil of tension suddenly released and the fierce, pulsing flood of sensation swept through her. Shivering and pushing hard against her fingers, she threw her head back and bit her bottom lip to try to muffle her gasping cries. But she lost all control, her release hot, violent, and endless.

She brought her release after release, all the while covering her with kisses and not stopping until the word ‘Red’ left her lips.

“Good girl. You were so good,” she breathed whilst freeing her hands. The moment her restraints had fallen away she wrapped her up in her arms and began soothingly stroking her hair. “How did it feel, my love?”

“Good,” Anastasia panted with a rich throaty accent. Her ancient heart melted. Simple as it was, that one little word meant the world to her. “So... so good. Thank you.”

“No, thank you.” She pressed the gentlest kiss on her lips. “I love you very much.”

“I don’t think Ive ever been this happy.” Anastasia smiled softly, and almost apologetically, as she caressed her cheek. “I love you, Kami.”

“You have become as necessary to me as the air I breathe,” she said frankly. “Your beauty and your smiles wrap themselves about me and warm me to the heart — to the very soul. You have taught me to trust and to love again, and I trust and love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone. More than I knew it was possible to love. And if you think I am making an ass of myself with such romantic hyperbole just because I want to make you feel better about admitting that you are happy, then I am going to have to take drastic measures.”

Anastasia giggled, the sound bringing a smile to her face. “And what drastic measures might they be?”

“Room service. A bubble bath. Scented candles. Wine.” She sighed happily. “Very drastic measures, you see.”

Kamilah now understood the thing that Lily had said to her about Anastasia after one of her very first training sessions, the thing that had puzzled her for an embarrassingly long time. She understood what she had meant when she told her that Anastasia was so full of love that she was practically brimming over with it. She understood what she’d meant when she’d said that she seemed so innocent that one couldn’t help but fear for her, even now she still gave that impression regardless of the fact it wasn’t true and she held enough power that she could decimate the world if she wished it.

But she had now reached the point at which she could relax and know that she had made it through to the other side of all of her suffering and could now be simply content in her life, even happy, inside a balanced mix of body, mind, and spirit.

“That sounds so good,” Anastasia breathed, “but hold me a while first.”

“I intend to,” she chuckled, “as I’m not even sure my legs could support my weight if I tried to stand up.”

“You fucked me so hard you turned your own legs to mush?,” Anastasia laughed. “What a legend, honestly.”

“Your mouth was the culprit, thank you very much.” She playfully nipped at her bottom lip. “You’re far too skilled at that for your own good.”

Anastasia blushed immediately and tried to hide her face but Kamilah stopped her hands before they could cover her flushed cheeks, and before she had even realised what was happening they were rolling about the bed wrestling like a pair of children. At more than two thousand years of age, she was squealing with laughter and play fighting with only a pillow as a weapon. 

It was madness. 

Utter madness.

And she was losing.

That was unacceptable.

Just plain unacceptable.

“You’re cheating!,” she laughed as Anastasia pinned her down and whacked her with one of the pillows so hard that feathers began flying everywhere. 

“You can’t cheat at pillow fights, you just suck—“ A playful scream left her throat as Kamilah flipped them over so that she was back on top. Anastasia looked at her, her eyes brimming with laughter again, feathers in her hair, her skin glowing. “Now that was cheating.”

“You can’t cheat at pillow fights,” she repeated smugly whilst smothering her with kisses. What was the word her mind was searching for? Gorgeous? She was hardly that. Stunning. That was it, she decided. She looked stunning, and she was indeed feeling more than a little bit stunned. She made mere prettiness seem bland. “It’s not my fault you’re so magnificently portable.”

“That may just be the most extra way anyone has ever insulted my height,” Anastasia pouted, though she couldn’t completely conceal her amusement.

They lost track of time passing and wrecked more than a few pillows before Kamilah eventually admitted defeat. Time felt languid and syrupy as the midday sun rose high in the sky outside their windows, but they didn’t notice. There was really no hurry for anything. This was the time to love. And time was not always just one second long or even one minute or one hour or whatever else. Those were artificial divisions, imposed by mortals. 

Time, for them, was an infinite thing. 

And it was time to love.

~ fin.


End file.
